Austin Grub: Day 5

Happy Easter everybody! Christ is risen!

Here is the Easter Devotional I would like to share:

Many churches of all denominations begin worship on Easter Sunday by singing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” Charles Wesley’s lyrics wonderfully celebrate how Jesus’ resurrection is God’s victory over death, and call us to tell the world.Play

Watch as more than 300 United Methodists from around the world join together for a very special virtual choir anthem, Charles Wesley’s “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” Video by United Methodist Communications.

A little history

Charles and John Wesley, two of the historic founders of The United Methodist Church, published the beloved hymn in their first hymnal, Hymns and Sacred Poems in 1739. A section toward the back of the hymnal includes songs for special days where “Hymn for Christmas-Day,” which we know as “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing,” is just a few pages away from “Hymn for Easter-Day” that we sing as “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today.”

For those who know our United Methodist Hymnal well, reading the words Wesley penned can feel incomplete. The alleluias we are used to singing at the end of each line aren’t there. A later editor added them to make the lyrics fit the tune and to give added opportunities for praise.

Entering the story

Wesley writes about the Resurrection in the present tense, inviting us into the biblical narrative. As we sing, we easily picture ourselves standing among the witnesses of the empty tomb on that first Easter morning.

“Christ the Lord is ris’n to day,”
Sons of men and angels say,
Raise your joys and triumphs high,
Sing ye heav’ns, and earth reply.

Participating in this moment, we are also aware of the magnitude of the Resurrection. In this opening verse, Wesley introduces a theme that runs through the hymn. The Resurrection is celebrated both on earth and in heaven.

Our United Methodist Hymnal includes an edit to the second line. “Earth and heaven in chorus say” replaces “Sons of men and angels say.” According to United Methodist Discipleship Ministries, this change updates Wesley’s language to be gender inclusive and emphasizes the Resurrection’s impact throughout the world and beyond.

“The entire universe sings the triumphant chorus,” writes United Methodist scholar the Rev. Paul Chilcote in The Song Forever New: Lent and Easter with Charles Wesley, “with earth and heaven shouting their praise back and forth in ecstatic joy.”

Life in the midst of death

Earth and heaven sing because in the Resurrection we know death is not the final word. Wesley writes,

Love’s redeeming work is done,
Fought the fight, the battle won…

Lives again our glorious King,
Where, O death, is now thy sting?

In a podcast interview for UMC.org’s Get Your Spirit in Shape, Chilcote says, “Death seems to be a final word in the life of every human being. Seems to be, I say, a final word, because it isn’t,” he continues. “The final word is life, not death. The final word is resurrection. The final word is eternal life with God who loves us.”

Wesley calls us to live into eternal life every day,

Soar we now, where Christ has led?
Following our exalted head,
Made like him, like him we rise,
Ours the cross—the grave—the skies!

In a later verse, not published in our United Methodist Hymnal, he reiterates our call to follow Christ more closely each day:

Ris’n with him, we upward move,
Still we seek the things above,
Still pursue, and kiss the Son
Seated on his Father’s throne;

Life still to come

In the final three of Wesley’s 11 verses, the hymn’s focus shifts to our hope of a day of resurrection yet to come. Wesley returns to the theme of earth and heaven singing praise on that day:

Hail the Lord of earth and heav’n!
Praise to thee by both be giv’n:
Thee we greet triumphant now;
Hail the resurrection thou!

Jesus is the resurrection who brings new life to all of creation, and will bring it to completion.

We receive new life in Christ by God’s grace and are to share God’s love with the world. We do this by joining the song with our voices and lives.

King of Glory, soul of bliss,
Everlasting life is this,
Thee to know, thy pow’r to prove,
Thus to sing, and thus to love!

Living Easter every day

“We experience so many little deaths, don’t we, in our lives?” Chilcote asks in the podcast interview. Some are literal deaths like the loss of a loved one, but we also experience other griefs. Relationships end. Jobs are lost. “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today” proclaims that Jesus has conquered all those deaths.

“The central message of our faith,” Chilcote concludes, “is the Cross and the Resurrection. Its earliest proclamation of a God who is in the business of raising us from the dead. Oh, if that isn’t good news, I don’t know what good news is.”

When we gather for worship on Easter Sunday and sing “Christ the Lord Is Risen Today,” we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection, God’s good news that life conquers death. As his disciples in the world today, we must raise our joys and triumphs high to invite others to join us in this new way of living.

https://www.umc.org/en/content/risen-today-a-wesley-hymn-devotion-for-easter

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It is time to share the cell phone pictures I took on Day 5 of my trip to Austin for the Computer Mine Conference. This is the 3rd and final day of the conference. It is a half day, so it is the day I have by far the most free time.

Joe drove all the way over from Houston to Austin to visit me, which was pretty amazing. When he said he was going to do it, I thought it was crazy since it is a 3 hour drive, but he referred to it as “Texas close” so I wasn’t going to argue with him.

He also brought a ton of food with him so he could brag about Texas. A ton of donuts, which unfortunately went mostly to waste, but I packed up and brought as much of them back to Iowa with me as I could. Some jerky from the greatest gas station in the world. But the pièce de résistance was the kolaches. I managed to bring those all the way back to Iowa without opening them. This is important because I have 2 kolache experts in my life. Both Elizabeth and Jay both are experts in the field. Both have different opinions on what makes a great kolache, but whenever I encounter one in the wild I try to secure one so that they can test them and give me their feedback.

But I’m putting the cart in front of the horse.

After Day 4, this is what was left in my per diem account:

$257.98

Here are the cell phone pictures I took on Day 5:

The view from my hotel room in the morning. I once again ate breakfast at the RP Club. No pictures though. There is a disappointing amount of food pictures taken on this day.

Joe met me at the hotel and he, Lowell, and I set out on an adventure. I didn’t know it would all be by foot, but that is what happened. Almost all the pictures on the adventure were taken with the real camera. So there are very few pictures to share today, so you will just have to imagine most of it for the time being.

First we hit up the Austin City Limits gift shop. We were denied a tour because their tours are ridiculously early in the day. But the gift shop was cool enough and seeing the building would have to be enough. After that we walked along the Colorado River until we crossed on a pretty sweet pedestrian bridge. Then we walked along the other side until we got back to the famous bat bridge on Congress Street. Where I met a golden retriever celebrating his birthday! From there we walked up Congress Street looking for lunch. We stopped at a rooftop bar for lunch. Then walked up to the Texas State Capitol and toured it. Then we walked back to the hotel where Joe said his goodbyes and Lowell and I met up with our supper group.

Here are some pictures of the walk:

Stevie Ray Vaughn, in case you can’t tell.

Under the bat bridge. You can guess what is covering the sign.

We stopped at Shiner’s Saloon lunch, mostly because the stickers on the door intrigued me. I got the brisket soft tacos, which aren’t rolled like tacos, but whatever.

The sign I failed to get in the pictures say, “I’m excited to be a part of this”.

“Double D’s Required” – I’m not familiar with that battery size.

Hard to believe that this is the only cell phone picture I took in the Capitol, but apparently it was.

I will never forget the time we got Kim to try Korean BBQ in Chicago and she embarrassed us. Not as much as she did ordering the grilled cheese sandwich at Gus’s, but pretty close.

Back at the hotel in the RP Club they were giving away free cheesecake. I ate it, but I did it as a proud representative of the proletariat!

Joe departed for his Texas close ride home and Lowell and I joined our supper crew. Which was Kim, Gina, and Derek. We headed to Lamberts which is a barbecue joint and not that amazing restaurant in Sikeston, Missouri. But it was still a pretty amazing restaurant. But nobody threw rolls at us, which seems like a miss.

We had a reservation, but still had to wait over 30 minutes to be seated because the people sitting in our table refused to leave after they were done eating. Sometimes people suck. Especially when your legs are shot for already having put in over 25,000 steps. It was extremely dark in the restaurant, so these delicious barbecue pictures are pretty dark and terrible.

I got the brisket. I ate so much brisket in Austin. It was insane. In a good way.

THE QUICK OVERVIEW:

• My final breakfast at the RP Club was good and they never caught on to me! Viva la revolution! The cheesecake in the evening was fantastic.
• The lunch at Shiner’s was just okay, but the company and atmosphere was excellent. Also Joe insisted on paying for it, so it was also free.
• Dinner at Lamberts was fantastic. Adam might have considered it bougie-cue and he wouldn’t have been wrong. The brisket was the best I had in Austin, but the sides left a little to be desired. Gina paid for this meal, so it was also free!

My breakfast was free. My lunch was free. My dinner was free. That means at the end of Day 5 this is what remained in the per diem account:

$257.98

Could I make that last through the flight home on Sunday? We will find out in the exciting exclusion to this adventure next Sunday!